


Toadstools to Footstools

by LadyKes



Series: POV [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 19:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2201112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKes/pseuds/LadyKes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione is intrigued</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toadstools to Footstools

Life at Hogwarts was now approaching normal, for which Hermione was grateful. It had been several weeks since the first arrival of the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, and everyone appeared to have settled into the new routine, including having two more schools at every meal (which made the Great Hall even noisier than it usually was, and that was really quite a feat).

Her main worry at this point was that Harry had somehow been chosen to be a part of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and he was really not at all prepared. She had to admit that he’d handled himself quite well during the first task, though. The other three champions had all had much more education than he, and they were likely a bit more diligent about their studies as well. She’d tried to convince Harry to spend some time researching new spells to learn in preparation for the other two tasks, but that had been largely unsuccessful. Harry’s perspective had been that since he didn’t know what the tasks were, he couldn’t exactly study for an unknown. She didn’t think he’d even _attempted_ to work on his egg since he got it from the dragon, and she sighed silently as she stared at the pumpkin juice on the table in front of her.

Thankfully Ron and Harry had finally made up. It’d been quite exhausting being in the middle of that fight, especially since it was making them both so incredibly miserable and neither would do a thing to solve it. She’d spent so much time listening to them that she’d gotten a bit behind on her studying schedule. Not that she really begrudged them the time since they were her best friends, but she did hate to get behind on her essays. Now that Harry and Ron were speaking again, she’d begun going to the library directly after dinner and staying there until nearly curfew just to make sure she stayed on top of things.

Speaking of dinner, she supposed she should stop woolgathering and finish eating hers. She glanced up from her plate to see Viktor Krum looking at her again, something that happened at least once each meal period. She couldn’t decide whether he was looking at her or just looking in her general direction. It seemed to be the second option given that he occasionally stopped scowling while looking at her and she couldn’t think of anything about herself that would cause that reaction.

She’d seen him around the castle as well and he’d always made sure to look at her. It was just as unsettling the twentieth time as it was the first, but she’d almost begun to look forward to seeing him. There was an intelligence in his eyes that she hadn’t exactly expected, but supposed she should have. Clearly he was quite the strategist at Quidditch, and thus it should have been logical that he’d be intelligent. He’d done quite well at the first task, deliberately blinding the dragon so it couldn’t see him grab the egg. She had to admire that bit of spell-casting, although it was unfortunate that the dragon had trod on the real eggs while it was angry about suddenly being blind.

Hermione watched as Millicent Bulstrode leaned over and said something unintelligible to Viktor (when had she started thinking of him as Viktor?), which caused him to roll his eyes enough that it was visible from two tables over before he got up and stalked off, and leaving Millicent looking rather crestfallen. Viktor’s fanclub, which consisted of roughly ten girls, also decided that they were done with dinner and disappeared after him. Hermione rolled her own eyes and finished her pudding, then went up to the library after reminding Harry and Ron to work on their Divination homework. She had a strong suspicion they’d just invent an evil curse to place on themselves and call it good.

Thankfully, no one was here yet. Viktor was here quite often, which meant that his fanclub was too. She’d noticed him reading some interesting-looking books that appeared to deal with Arithmancy and Charms Theory judging from the formulas she’d seen in them. Unfortunately most of them were in languages she didn’t speak and so she couldn’t exactly investigate further. She sat down at her usual table and began working on her essay for Transfiguration before realizing she’d neglected to pick up the French source she was planning to use. Fortunately, she knew exactly where it was and that it wasn't likely to be checked out. 

She was startled to find Viktor sitting in the cubby next to the foreign language section, but he was deep in thought and didn’t appear to notice her approach. She looked for her book as quietly as possible while sneaking glances at him. He really was rather nice looking, sitting in a chair with his hands steepled under his chin and without a scowl on his face. She recalled the time she’d been walking from the owlery to the main castle and had heard someone laughing. She’d looked over and had seen that it was Viktor, walking alone and clearly enjoying something quite funny. His laughter had transformed his face. He still had a crooked nose, and his eyebrows were still rather low, but when he laughed she somehow didn’t notice that.

She found the book she was looking for and flipped it to the chapter she thought would be useful. Yes, it would most definitely add an extra element to her essay to use this source. She became aware that Viktor had stood and was looking through the Russian language section before picking out a title. She looked up at him and found him looking at her again. He was standing up straight (for once) and his entire face was more relaxed as he cocked his head to the side, raised one of his dark eyebrows, and suddenly seemed to focus all of his attention on her. It was almost as if he were incredibly interested in nothing else in the world at that moment – nothing else but her. Was that what men looked like when they were attracted to a woman? She suspected it was, but no, that couldn’t be, not from Viktor Krum to Hermione Granger. She smiled up at him, hoping he didn’t notice her curious stare, and then went back to her table, placing the text near her on the table but not starting to write just yet. Viktor Krum was a puzzle and she did like puzzles. She would have to think about this a bit more sometime, but for now, she really had to work on Transfiguration. Professor McGonagall would not appreciate it if her essay on turning toadstools into footstools was substandard and Hermione had a feeling that “I was thinking about Viktor Krum” was not exactly a good excuse.


End file.
